everything is a choice
I really liked this piece by Kate Harding. Since the Tiller assassination there’s been some interesting and provocative thinking about where choice really might end. Obviously, it ends somewhere between forcing necessary medical care on children against their parents wishes and allowing victims of incestuous rape to abort their pregnancies. It turns out there’s lots of shades of gray inside the shades of grey.
Kenny and Lara had a great discussion about this yesterday. Like both of them, I find myself to be entirely unorthodox in my unwavering commitment to a woman’s choice. Any thinking person will have different reasons for feeling the way they do; only zealots fully embrace party lines.
I support Roe v Wade because it not only ensures women their rights but it also ensures everyone the right to privacy and freedom from government meddling in our most private affairs. Watching a fascist theocracy run amok in Iran is an appropriate backdrop to this observation. However, I was born to a couple of 18-year olds who retreated to their respective parent’s homes on their wedding night. I don’t think every abortion is necessary or every unplanned pregnancy a curse, but it really isn’t for anyone outside of the people involved to decide.
Teahouse of the Furious Buddha 
June 25, 2009 at 11:33 am
Off topic – but thoughts on this article?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/24/virtual.child.porn/index.html
June 25, 2009 at 5:18 pm
[…] are not the Vivian Girls Lara asked my thoughts on this story of a Tennessee man charged with making child pornography via […]
June 28, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Is child pornography a private affair?
June 28, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Why would you even ask that? It should be self-evident that a child cannot give consent, nor does the concept of ‘privacy’ apply to children the same way it does to an adult.
July 3, 2009 at 8:09 pm
The prenatal is not a child?
July 4, 2009 at 8:52 am
The word ‘prenatal’ is an adjective. You are using it as a noun. Grammatically, your question makes no sense. It’s like asking ‘The scary is not a child?’ or ‘The stupid is not a child?’ I presume that you mean to ask ‘The fetus is not a child?’ to which I would answer ‘generally, no’.
The word ‘child’ usually refers to the period between birth and adulthood. That’s why there are words like ‘fetus’ and ’embryo’. Informally, a pregant woman may be referred to as being ‘with child’ but this is an idiomatic use of the word.